CHICANO AND AFRICAN-AMERICAN AUTOBIOGRAPHIES: IDENTITIES ON
THE BORDER
M" TERESA NANDIN VILA
Universidad de Santiago de Compostela
(Resumen)
La comunidad chicana y la afro-americana muestran una identidad claramente
heterogénea debido a su tradición migratoria. En el caso de los chícanos, su situación
geográfica les proporciona una metáfora muy adecuada para su condición: se encuentran en
una "frontera cultural". Así, muchas autobiografías de autores chicanos muestran, por una
parte, un afán por defínir la propia identidad, no ya como algo rígido sino como una
realidad dinámica. Por otra, se aprecia la creación de un lenguaje particular mediante la
incorporación al discurso dominante de formas de expresión propias. Por su parte, la
comunidad afro-americana presenta algunos intentos de naturaleza similar. Esto indica que
sus escritores avanzan en la dirección adecuada hacia una "escritura de frontera".
Marie Louise Pratt's concept of "línguistics in contact" acknowledges that cultures
are not intact, homogeneous groups, but are, instead, heterogeneous and changing. This is
more evident in the case of Chicano and A frican-American cultural identities. Their
migratory traditíon, and the combination of different cultural influences in their history has
forced these ethnic groups to engage in a constant relocation and a questioníng of their
identities.
Migration ímplies change: cultural change, change of references and, on occasíons,
the fact of trespassing límits. Many Afrícans were brought from their continent and sold as
black slaves to different parts of the country throughout the 17th century. Later, in the 20th
century a massive black exodus took place between 1915 and 1940 from the southem farms
towards the industrial cities of the North. In a parallel fashion, Mexicans always had a
tradition of migration, "a tradition for long waiks," as the chicana Gloria Anzaldúa
identifíes it:
El retorno to the promised land begun with the indians from the interior of México
and the mestizos that carne with the conquistadores in the 1500s (11)
The Mexican immigration continued during the next three centuries. Finally,
thousands of Mexicans continué to cross the border both legally and illegally during the
20th century. The most massive movements were due to the Mexican Revolution
(1910-1920), and later to the construction of the railway from the American Midwest down
to the south-west of the country. The displacement of the Mexican border 100 miles south,
through the Tratado de Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848 also constituted a migration for many
Mexicans. Even though it was not a geographical migration, these Mexicans suddenly
found themselves as involuntary citizens of a difTerent country.
During the 20th century, the Mexican and African-American migrations have had
a similar sociological character. Both involved the displacement of large numbers of
18
M'' Teresa Nandín Vila
low-class agricultura! workers. In many cases the migration implied a change from an
agricultural environment to an urban one, from illiteracy to culture (and consequently from
marginal language to dominant language), from nature to technology, and frequently from a
State of innocence to one of maturity. Due to these changes, the migrants underwent a
period of social and cultural adaptation. This adaptation required a reformulation of their
own identity, since their oíd points of reference were no longer valid. Later, once the
process of assimilation into a new culture was almost completed, the formation of identity
within these minority groups became even more complex. The African-American and the
Chicano communities, as well as any other minority groups, were placed in the margin in
America, that is, on a metaphorical border. The hegemonic culture which considered the
country as a unified entity based on European pattems, ignored the specificity of its
minority groups. Due to this. Chícanos and Afro-Americans had difficulty in reconciling
their own cultural heritage with the culture common to the entire country. In fact, their
identity was formed with elements from both cultures.
Furthermore, these ehtnic groups were not originally homogeneous themselves.
Mexicans originated from a mixture of Castilian and Indian blood. Spanish traditions and
Aztec myths merged progressively, creating the Mexican culture. Later, when a great
number of Mexican mestizos, indians and whites migrated to the United States and faced
the Anglo-saxon culture, the melting of both cultures (Mexican and North-American) gave
rise to the chicano. On the other hand, African-Americans underwent their first process of
cultural mixing during the times of slavery. The cultural assimilation almost erased their
African rites, religions and languages. However, in spite of adopting some American social
pattems, blacks continued to develop unique forms of expression, such as "the Blues,"
voodoo practices and stylistically unique forms of dance. Later, the migration of many
African-Americans to the North imposed a ftirther degree of cultural assimilation. The
migration meant distancing themselves from a sharecropping culture, and this resulted in
the breaking of bonds with many traditional aspects of African culture, such as agricultural
work and an oral tradition.
Autobiographies, both fictional and non-fictional, serve as a good comparative
base of the process of formation of such a complex identity among the individuáis of these
two ethnic groups. Frequently, autobiographies help the individual to construct
his/her self in the process of assimilation into a specific environment. An analysis of
Chicano and African-American autobiographies shows the following: first, the identity of
these groups can no longer be considered as homogeneous, ñor can it ignore the dominant
culture for its definition; secondly, through the use of a specific set of referential codes,
these groups can find a distinctive mode of expression, which would reflect the
combination of the specific and the dominant culture in their identity. Luis Leal points to
this second aspect in his article "The Probiem of Identifying Chicano Literature:"
Chicano literature, like all other literatures, can give expression to the universal
through the regional.... And [the Chicano writer] is giving expression to this in an
original style. By writing in a combination of English and Spanish, he is creating
new images. And the creation of a new image is precisely the probiem that
confronts the Chicano writer, for it is not easy to give universality to the regional
or particular if the writer does not go beyond his immediate circumstance. The
Chicano has to créate a synthesis out of history, tradition, and his everyday
confrontation with the everchanging culture in which he lives. (Jiménez 4)
Chicano and African- American Autobiographies:...
19
The cióse proximity of Mexican-Americans to the Mexican border provides them
with a useful metaphor of their situation in the United States. The image of people crossing
back and forth over the border suggests the position of the minority writer. The Chicano
writer or, by extensión, any other minority writer must be able to sitúate himself/herself on
both sides of the cultural border: the border that not only separates the culture of their
country of originfi-omthat of their present country, but one that also separates their ethnic
group from the hegemonic American culture. The concept of "cultural borderlands" was
first introduced by the chicana Gloria Anzaldúa in her book Borderlands/La Frontera
(1987). Anzaldúa defines it as follows:
A borderland is a vague and undetermined place created by the emotional residue
of an unnatural boundary. It is a constant state of transition. The prohibited and the
forbidden are its inhabitants. Los atravesados live here: the squint-eyed, the
perversa, the queer, the troublesome, the mongrel, the mulatto, the half-breed, the
half dead; in short, those who cross over the confines of the "normal." (13)
According to Anzaldúa, the psychological and cultural borderlands are present
wherever two or more cultures "edge each other," where two or more races come into
contact, when people from lower classes interact with people from working classes, or
every time "the space between two individuáis shrinks with intimacy" (Anzaldúa Preface).
Later, in 1991, Emily Hicks uses the term in a more specific manner, and identifies
Chicano literature as "Border Writing." As a group differentiated from the dominant
culture. Chícanos do not identiíy themselves with the standard English of the United States.
For this reason, they créate a different referential code that allows them to express
their heterogeneous and differentiated identity. In the introduction to her book, Hicks
explains the implications of border literature: "By choosing a strategy of translation rather
than representation, border writers ultimately undermine the distinction between original
and alien culture." ( xxiii).
In this sense, "border writing" is related to Linda Hutcheon's postmodem concept
of de-centering the center. In border writing the Other is no longer the Other; he/she is Self
and Other, since the concept implies the ability to be on both sides of a cultural border. The
referential code of the South integrates both elements of the universal dominant culture and
the specific minority culture. Two illusfrative examples of forms of border expression in
these two cultures are African-American Blues and Chicano corridos.
I consider, nevertheless, that the concept of border literature as conceived by Hicks
can be too narrow in its application. Taking Deleuze and Guattari's definition of "Minor
Literatures" as a point of reference, Hicks establishes four fixed categories of expression
for border literature: l)non-synchronous memory, 2) deterritorialization or nonsynchrony in
relation to everyday life, 3) decentered subject/active reader becoming animal, and 4) the
political. (Hicks xxxi). Even though these categories may be useful and many border
literaty works conform to them, the fact of considering them as the only possible cholees is
the equivalent of actually setting borders on border writing. Therefore, this concept may be
more useful if considered in a broader sense, by simply trying to identify the various
specific modes of expression of each ethnic group. Since identity is a heterogeneous
concept, its form of expression must consequently be heterogenous as well. Thus, a
plantation-bom migrator, who setties in Chicago, is not likely to use the same forms of
expression as a New York native quadroon woman, who retums to the South in search of
her cultural roots. In spite of their common ethnic background, questions of gender, class,
20
M' Teresa Nandín Vila
education and environment, cause differences in the way they understand their identity.
In the following pages I will first analyze the formation of identity and the creation
of a distinctive semantic code in some "border" Chicano autobiographies. Secondly, 1 will
show how the process of identity searching is similar in the Afro-American culture, and
also how the concept of "cultural borderlands" can be useftíl to express the singularity of
Afro-American literature, as well as its interrelation with the dominant culture. Some
autobiographies written by blacks in American have succeeded in using a distinctive form
of expression and, therefore, can be considered as border writing.
From its beginnings, Chicano literature has been concemed with the essence of
Chicano identity. Gloria Anzaldúa remarks that until the publication of / am Joaquín/ Soy
Joaquín {\967) by Rodolfo Gonzales, "chícanos did not even know we were the people
(Anzaldúa 63). / am Joaquín/ Soy Joaquín is a coUection of poems and documentary
photographs which constitutes not only a personal, but also a collective autobiography. The
constant repetition of the term Yo throughout the book reveáis an effort of autodefinition by
the poetic voice. The author, a chicano bom in Denver and son of a Mexican migrant,
expresses his purpose in the introduction of the book:
Writing / am Joaquín was a joumey back through history, a painftil
self-evaluation, a wandering search for my peoples and, most of all, for my own
identity. ... / am Joaquín became a historical essay, a social statement, a
conclusión of our mestizaje, a welding of the oppressor (Spaniard) and the
oppressed (Indian). (1)
The identity defined in Gonzales' book has a strong connection to history.
Uprooted from his original land, the Chicano needs to recapture his history and leam about
Mexican myths. Thus, the poet repeatedly refers to the Mexican héroes of the revolución
mexicana, such as Pancho Villa and Emiliano Zapata. Mythical indian figures are also
present in his poems: "I am Cuahtemoc/ proud and noble" (16). Also, the reference to the
various aspects of Mexican society creates a collective frame. The photographs, many of
them showing popular Mexican works of art, the inclusión of poems addressing different
social groups of Chícanos, which deal with various aspects, provide the autobiography with
a communal character. This collective tone is one of the most common traits of border
Chicano literature.
Another important theme in / am Joaquín/Yo soy Joaquín are the contradictory
implications of being Mexican-American. The poet addresses the question of the racial
mixture of this ethnic group:
The indian has endured and still
emerged the winner,
the Mestizo must yet overeóme.
And the gachupín will just ignore.
I look at myself
andseepartof me
who rejects my father and my mother
and disolves into the melting pot
to dissappear in shame. (52)
This conflictive identity fmds a method of expression in the bilingual production
Chicano and African- American Autobiographies:...
21
of poetry. The poems in the book are. presented both in English and Spanish, in altemating
pages. This, along with the use of Mexican mythology and epic and its collective tone,
contributes to créate a distinct mode of expression.
Barrio Boy (1971), a narrative autobiography by Ernesto Galarza, constitutes
another example of a border autobiography which attempts to define Chicano identity,
using a characteristic style. Ernesto, bom in a Mexican village called Jalcotán, migrates
with his family to Mazatlán in the northem part of the country. In Matzalán the Mexican
revolution forces them to continué north, moving to Nogales and Tucson, and, final ly to
Sacramento, California, where they establish themselves. The joumey constitutes a process
of self-knowledge and spiritual growth for the protagonist. According to Saldívar, "the
intersections and crossroads he experiences are literally signifiers of some tuming point in
the Ufe of the autobiographer" (165). Therefore, the joumey constitutes not only a process
of maturation but also one of cultural relocation.
During his childhood, Emesto's education begins in the streets, and later continúes
through his mother reading to him and through going to school, where he leams some
Mexican history. Mexican culture is presented to him in Galarza's novel as something quite
unified and homogeneous. However, this entire cultural process is interrupted and
counteracted when they arrive in Sacramento. The points of reference that the protagonist
had in his country are no longer usefiíl. The greatest barrier between himself and this new
society is mainly linguistic. Initially this creates confusión in the child, as the narrator
evokes when he writes about his experiences at school:
1 tried interrupting to tell Mrs. Ryan how we said it in Spanish. It didn't work. She
only said "oh" and went on with "pasture", "bow-wow-wow" and pretty. (210)
Here, the young Ernesto, trying to synthesize his two major cultural influences,
adopts a border perspective. In spite of being interested in the process of leaming the new
language, Ernesto feels the necessity of preserving and even communicating his own
language to others. Even later in his adolescence, when Emesto's process of acculturation is
almost complete, he succeeds in keeping some bonds with his oíd culture. For example, he
enjoys telling his vecinos stories about his former life in México. Therefore, his process of
cultural change is dynamic and bidirectional.
The events in this autobiography occur in several metaphorical spaces: the
vecindad or barrio and the road. Emesto's joumey is a circular one, from the vecindad in
Jalcontán, to the road, and finally to the barrio in Sacramento. The parallel between the
initial and the final stages presents the two parts of the border in a mirror-like manner.
Also, the heteroglossia, that is, the inclusión of Spanish terms throughout the narration,
demonstrates the interaction between American and Mexican culture in the life of the
Chicano. The direct, colloquial style of the novel, with very simple sentences, and the
distinct ethnographic character of the narration, are other means of preserving the Mexican
past in the Anglo-saxon culture of the United States.
Anzaldúa carnes the concept of border identity even further. Her book
Borderlands/La Frontera is not only an ethnographic essay, but also an individual and
collective autobiography. Anzaldúa begins by identifying herself as a border person due to
her texano origin. But there are other factors that qualify Gloria Anzaldúa as a border
person: she is a mestiza, an iconoclast bom in a culture where women must be passive, and
a lesbian in a country of traditional catholic valúes. In her youth Gloria fínds herself limited
within her own culture. Those around her identily her as hija de la Malinche; she is una
22
M^ Teresa Nandín Vila
atravesada . For this reason, Gloria faces two alternativa options. Staying in her own
culture means being constrained and not being able to find her real identity. Moving to a
different culture represents an opportunity of finding her own self, at the expense of losing
contact with her original people. She eventually decides to sitúate herself in a border
position, both physically and culturally:
The new mestiza copes by developing a tolerance for contradictions, a toierance
for ambiguity. She ieams to be an Indian in Mexican culture, to be Mexican from
an Anglo point of view. She Ieams to juggle cultures. She has a plural personality,
she operates in a pluralistic mode ... Not only does she sustain contradiction, she
tums ambivalence into something else. (79)
According to Barbara Harlow, in Borderlands/La Frontera "the already complex
identity is fragmented further in the bilingual, even trilingual, multigeneric textual
composition" (Calderón 159) The book combines different modalities of Spanish and
English, and different genres, such as poems, essays and confessions. Moreover, like
González's book, Borderlands/La Frontera creates an epic and collective tone. Thus,
Anzaldúa practices a multidimensional perception, not only spatially, but also temporally in
that she produces an interaction between the Chicano of the present and the Mexican myths
of the past. For example, she parallels the contradictions of the chicana identity to those of
the catholic figure of La Virgen de Guadalupe, which originated from the Aztec Goddess
Coatlalopeuh.
Therefore, according to Anzaldúa, Chicano identity is not resolved into simple
oppositions or solutions. It demands flexibility and the ability "to juggle cultures." The
language of borderlands thus constitutes "one of the crucial places for identity building"
(Wolfgang 51), in order to live on the margin "keeping intact one's shifting and múltiple
identity and integrity" (Anzaldúa Preface).
The search for identity has also been a crucial and complex issue in
African-American migration autobiographies, parallel to that of Chicano autobiographies.
Butterfield traces the trajectory of the black autobiography in the United States, and
establishes three different periods. In his opinión, slave autobiographies defined Negro
identity by taking the white person as a point of reference. Many slave narratives were
actually directed by whites. Later, "between 1900 and 1961, the age of DuBois and Wright,
.... the identity is more alienated, not only from white America, but from other blacks"
(Butterfield 7). He finally states that after 1961 the autobiographies become more political
and move towards a more colloquial discourse. Whether his classification is accurate or not,
it shows a tendency in the formation of African-American identity from rigid pattems to
more flexible ones, parallel those of Chicano autobiographies. In 1985 Barbara Johnson
refers to the necessity of contemplating black identity as a dynamic concept:
If I initially approached Hurston out of a desire to rereferentialize difference, what
Hurston gives me back seems to be difference as a suspensión of difference.
Yet, the terms "black" and "white", "inside" and "outside," continué to matter.
Hurston suspends the certainty of reference not by erasing these differences byt
foregrounding the complex dynamism of their interaction. (289)
Thus, we need to aim to identify any minority through its contacts and crossings
with the dominant culture in its social practices. What defines a minority identity is not its
Chicano and African- American Autobiographies:...
23
opposition to the Eurocentric American model, but its interaction with it. In this sense, the
position of African-American literature is a position of borderlands, as well. Furthermore,
the migration process still establishes another border in African-American culture: the
border that separates the traditional culture of the South and the industrial way of life of
northem cities. As borderland people, African-American writers should attempt to develop
a distinct mode of expression, in the same way Chicano writers do. Even though
African-Americans do not possess a differentiated language, they have been able to
preserve unarticulated semantic codes of reference, in some cases only meaningful to them.
Thus, an African-American border language must intégrate those genuine elements in their
standard English forms of expression. An analysis of several African-American migration
autobiographies reveáis the conflictive process of a search for identity in this ethnic group.
It also shows the success of some African-Americans in developing a specific type of
"border language."
Era Bell Thompson's American Daughter (1946) constitutes an example of an
African-American migrant in search for self-defmition. This autobiography nárrales the life
of a woman bom in North Dakota, granddaughter of a free black woman and a white
slaveholder. As an adolescent, she migrates to Chicago, where she works for a while. Later,
she attends Dawn College in lowa. After settling down in Chicago again, she begins a
joumey west.
Both the joumey and the act of writing her autobiography are means to leam about
her identity. Era grows up in a predominantly white environment, for black families are
very rare in North Dakota at the time. Even though she never experiences discrimination.
Era has formed her concept of identity by taking whites as a point of reference. Events such
as lynchings or riots, which are familiar experiences for other African-Americans, sound
remote to her. For this reason, she initially has great difficulty in identifying herself with
the African-American culture of Chicago and the South. The fact of receiving an education
also distances her from other blacks. Thus, at some point in the novel, she considers herself
an uncommon Negro: "I began to feel uneasy, to feel the color line, boundaries within black
boundaries" (183). Her joumey around the country makes her become more aware of the
heterogeneous nature of her racial community, and also of the entire country. Eventually
she expresses her desire to see a united America, but it is not evident to the reader whether
she has been able to reconcile her American and African sides.
Even though the language in American Daughter is quite conventional, some
metaphors and images are characteristic of African-American literature. For example, she
flnds herself repeating the words of the slave spirituals at moments of difficulty. Also, the
various spaces of the novel, which difTerentiate the stages in the life of the protagonist, are
very recurrent in African-American literature. The Mid-West represents unity with Nature,
a life of harmony and interaction with the natural world. In opposition, the city, Chicago, is
associated with modemity, technology and excitement, but also alienation and
dehumanization. The third space in the novel, the South, represents the past and the land of
prejudice and discrimination. All these characteristics reveal American Daughter as an
early attempt of creating an Afro-American distinctive literature.
Invisible Man (1952), a fictional autobiography by Ellison, proposes a reevaluation
of the preceding hegemonic interpretations of African-American identity. From his
education at the Tuskegee Institution to his career as a speaker in New York, the
protagonist adopts several fixed identities. None of these identities, formed according white
American pattems and syntethised in the phrase "keep the Nigger running," seems effective
to him. He realizes that he cannot avoid being invisible in the eyes of whites. Finally, in a
24
M^ Teresa Nandín Vila
moment of epiphany, he decides to adopt an attitude of "hibemation." Isolating himself
from the others, he ceases to embrace fixed identities and starts a metaphorical joumey of
descent by writing his autobiography. At the end of this process, the protagonist is ready to
take action. The final sentence of the book, "Who knows but that, on the lower frequencies,
1 speak for you?," indicates a resolution to start a dialogue between blacks and whites, that
is, to end the state of invisibility.
!n spite of its linear structure, Ellison's novel is a melting pot that includes
allusions to a majority of the elements of the Afi-ican-American culture. Through the
dialogue with a slave woman in the prologue the protagonist resorts to history in his process
of self-examination. Ironically, since history has been constructed, it cannot provide him
with an answer. It is for this reason that the protagonist decides to detain the process of
history and hibemate. The connection to the past, along with the final decisión of "teliing
others" in order to start the process of history again, shows the non-synchronous character
of the book. The book encourages an interaction among past, present and future in the
search for identity.
On the other hand, the slave woman introduces the element of folk narration. As
opposed to the written articulated language of whites, African-American forms of
expression have been essentially oral. Oral folk, however, is not the only mode of
expression of African-American culture; less articulated forms of semantic codes are also
recurrent throughout the novel. Thus, the blues and jazz frame many of the events of the
book, providing it with a particular tone. "Louis Armstrong and his jazz reflect both an
articulated self and a mode of breaking through the ordinary categories of Western clock
time" (Benston 96). Also, the signs of tribal culture, such as Tod Clifton's sambo dolls and
his leg iron, are interpreted in the book successftilly only by those submerged in
African-American culture.
Furthermore, Ellison is able to créate an interaction between both articúlate and
non-articulate forms of expression within the novel. Referring to this aspect, George Kent
States:
We may see the interaction through several characters who, in varying degrees, are
folk figures or are a part of cultural tradition. In more complex form, the
interaction of folk and cultural tradition ranges from motifs to situations, symbols,
and strategic appearances of folk art forms. (Benston 97)
Therefore, Invisible Man may be considered as border writing, not only because of
its rejection of a fixed identity pattem, but also and principally, due to its distinctive
African-American mode of expression.
Another frequent Afro-American pattem for autobiographies is that of slave
narratives. Richard Wright's Black Boy (1937) and Maya Angelou's / know Why The Caged
Bird Sings (1969) are constructed according to this pattem. Both present many of the
elements typical of slave narratives: education, resistance, inability to fit the mold of slave,
discontentment, joumey north, politics, movements upward in social scale. However,
although the formation of identity undergoes a similar process in these two autobiographies,
the exploration of womanhood adds a different perspective to Angelou's book. The
protagonist feeis alienated due to her skin color and her dark eyes, but her alienation partly
comes from the fact of being a woman. Being raped by her mother's partner makes her
aware of this alienation and causes the beginning of the process of maturation regarding
this aspect of her identity. Her pregnancy at the end of the book represents the final stage in
Chicano and African- American Autobiographies:...
25
the exploration of her identity as a black woman.
Even though it may seem that the concept of black identity in these two books is
understood solely as opposed to white identity, the final paragraphs in Black Boy reveal a
more Interactive concept:
So, in leaving, I was taking part of the South to transplant in alien soil, to see if it
could grow differently, if it could drink of new and cool rains, bend in strange
winds, respond to the warmth of other suns, and perhaps to bloom...(284)
Going north, the narrator expects to encounter a new culture that will permeate
him. However. the process will be bidirectional, since the protagonist carries his own
culture, which he wishes to transmit as well.
Finally, both Wright and Angelou utilize African-American representative images
and expressive codes in their autobiographies. For instance, in / Know Why the Caged Bird
Sings mass-media and literary references altérnate with allusions to folk modes of
expression, such as church songs and recipe books. Its ethnographic character, the use of
images stereotypical in AfricanAmerican culture (the train, the North) and other traditional
metaphors, such as the cage, also reveal a distinct type of language.
It seems evident, therefore, that in the process of defining identity, polarities are no
longer valid. A specific individual or culture may be defined according to various points of
reference. Also, according to Johnson, "there is no universalized Other, no homogeneous
'us' for the self to reveal itself to" (288). Thus, identities are dynamic and changing entities.
Taking this into consideration, the concept of "cultural borderlands" can be extremely
useful to define two cultures that come into contact. Mexican-American literature has
appropriated this concept not only by being able to look at its culture both from inside and
outside the dominant ideology, but also by creating a unique mode of expression through
the interaction of Western forms of signification and its specific regional modes of
expression. On the other hand, African-American writers have strived to surpass the various
fixed pattems proposed for African-American identity, in search of a more flexible model.
There have also been numerous attempts to créate a distinct "black aesthetic" in literature.
This demónstrales that African-American literary works are moving in the right direction
towards a position of borderlands which will ultimately lead to a more accurate depiction of
what AfricanAmerican identity represents.
GLOSSARY
ATRAVESADOS (adj)
BARRIO (n)
CHICANA (n)
CONQUISTADORES (n)
CORRIDOS (adj)
EL RETORNO (n)
G A C H U P Í N (n)
HIJA DE LA MALINCHE (n)
LA VIRGEN DE GUADALUPE (n)
MESTIZAJE (adj)
MESTIZO/A (n)
REVOLUCIÓN MEXICANA (n)
the deviant
neighborhood
feminine term of the word chicano
conquerors
Mexican border ballads
the retum
Spaniard settled in Latin America
Malinche's daughter
Our Lady of Guadalupe
racial mixture
person bom of a Spaniard and an Indian
Mexican revolution
26
TEXANO (n)
TRATADO (n)
UNA ATRAVESADA (n)
VECINDAD (n)
VECINOS (n)
YO (pr)
M" Teresa Nandín Vila
Texan
treaty
a deviant woman
neighborhood
neighbor
I (first person pronoun)
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Angeiou, Maya. / Know Why ihe Caged Bird Sings. New York; Bantam Books, 1971.
Braxton, Joanne. Black Women Writing Autobiographies. Philadelphia: Temple University
Press, 1974.
Butterfield, Stephen. Black Autobiography in America. Amherst: University of
Massachusetts Press, 1974.
Calderón, Hemesto & José D. Saldívar. Criticism in the Borderiands. Durham and London:
Duke University Press, 1991.
Cisneros, Sandra. The House on Mango Street. Houston: Arte Público Press, 1984.
Deleuze, Gilíes & Félix Gauttari. Kajka: Toward a Minor Literature. Trans. Dana Poland.
Minneapolis: U. of Minnessota Press, 1986. 16-27.
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